About
Michael Andrews was born into a devout Methodist family. His father worked for Norwich Union insurance. He was educated at the City of Norwich School, and in his final year, attended evening classes at Norwich School of Art. After national service, much of it spent in Egypt, he studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London. His main influences were William Coldstream, the Principal, and Francis Bacon, who occasionally taught in the school’s sketching club. In 1953, he won a two-year scholarship in painting to the British School at Rome. Upon his return from Rome, he divided his time between Norwich and London before settling in London in 1961. He remained there until 1977, when he moved to Norfolk. His first solo exhibition was held at the Beaux Arts Gallery in London in 1958, and his second at the same venue in 1963, the year he started living with June Keeley, his future wife. They had one daughter, Melanie, born in 1970. In 1992, they returned from Norfolk to London where Andrews died three years later. During his lifetime, he was given a retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, London (1980–81). Another was held after his death at Tate Britain, London (2001).
Andrews is usually associated with painters of the so-called School of London—Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff and Frank Auerbach. Yet in spite of their shared belief in representing appearances, exploring the human form, and avoiding abstraction, he painted relatively few portraits and only three self-portraits in a career lasting some forty years. With a few exceptions, his paintings after 1970 are physically devoid of people, though not without an implied human presence or drama.
For the last twenty-five years of his life, Andrews was preoccupied with four great series of landscapes, and a group of luminous paintings of fish in water. The latter continue Andrews’s interest in group behaviour, first seen in the 1960s in his “party” pictures, The Deer Park, All Night Long, and Good and Bad at Games. Intensely curious about the natural world, Andrews found his subjects in the primeval landscapes of England and Scotland, the Australian outback, and the River Thames. “It seems to me impossible not to paint religious landscapes of aboriginal Australia,” he wrote in 1986, “just as it is almost impossible not to paint historical landscapes in Scotland.”
Michael Andrews was born in 1928 in Norwich, England, and died in 1995 in London, England. He attended the City of Norwich School, England; Norwich School of Art, England; and finally the Slade School of Fine Art, London, from 1949 to 1953. Recent solo museum exhibitions include the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (1991); Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2000); and Tate Britain, London (2001).
Photo: © Estate of Bruce Bernard (Virginia Verran)
#MichaelAndrews
Friends and Relations: Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews
Join Jake Auerbach, Richard Calvocoressi, Bella Freud, Martin Gayford, and Florence Hallett as they discuss the work and legacy of four era-defining artists. Friends and Relations: Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Michael Andrews, recently on view at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, elucidated the connections between their respective practices, and featured some of the artists’ portraits of one another.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Winter 2022
The Winter 2022 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Anna Weyant’s Two Eileens (2022) on its cover.
Bruce Bernard: Portraits of Friends
Virginia Verran details the photographer’s friendships with the London painters.
Frank Auerbach: Artist Friends
In this candid interview with Richard Calvocoressi, the painter Frank Auerbach reminisces on his friendships with Michael Andrews, Francis Bacon, and Lucian Freud. The two spoke during the planning of the exhibition Friends and Relations, a show that examines the interconnected lives and art practices of this group of London painters.
Michael Andrews: Air
Richard Calvocoressi sheds light on one series of paintings from his latest curatorial endeavor, the Earth Air Water exhibition in London.
Michael Andrews: Elusive Painter
Narrated by Richard Calvocoressi, this video, featuring unseen archival material, is a biographical overview of the late British painter.
Museum Exhibitions
Closed
Bacon, Freud, and the School of London Painters
October 9, 2018–January 13, 2019
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
mng.hu
In the decades following World War II, Bacon, Freud, and their British contemporaries engaged with subjects that felt immediate and intensely personal. This exhibition retraces their artistic developments via works, including paintings and drawings, spanning seven decades. Despite the sheer diversity of approaches and techniques that embodied their practices, the members of this group were constantly renewing their individual appraisals of the artist’s personal position in the world, focusing on individuals, locations, and narratives close and dear to them. The exhibition was initially produced under the title Bacon, Freud, and the London Painters by ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark. Work by Michael Andrews, Francis Bacon, Glenn Brown, Alberto Giacometti, and Jenny Saville is included.
Jenny Saville, Untitled (Stare Study III), 2005–06 © Jenny Saville
Closed
All Too Human
Bacon, Freud, and a Century of Painting Life
February 28–August 27, 2018
Tate Britain, London
www.tate.org.uk
In the decades following World War II, Bacon, Freud, and their British contemporaries engaged with subjects that felt immediate and intensely personal. This exhibition retraces their artistic developments via works, including paintings and drawings, spanning seven decades. Despite the sheer diversity of approaches and techniques that embodied their practices, the members of this group were constantly renewing their individual appraisals of the artist’s personal position in the world, focusing on individuals, locations, and narratives close and dear to them. The exhibition was initially produced under the title Bacon, Freud, and the London Painters by ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark. Work by Michael Andrews, Francis Bacon, and Jenny Saville is included.
Jenny Saville, Reverse, 2003 © Jenny Saville
Closed
Bacon, Freud, and the London Painters
October 14, 2017–February 4, 2018
ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark
en.aros.dk
In the decades following World War II, this group of artists engaged with subjects that felt immediate and intensely personal. This exhibition retraces their artistic developments via works, including paintings and drawings, spanning seven decades. Despite the sheer diversity of approaches and techniques that embodied their practices, the members of this group were constantly renewing their individual appraisals of the artist’s personal position in the world, focusing on individuals, locations, and narratives close and dear to them. Work by Michael Andrews and Francis Bacon is included.
Francis Bacon, Three Figures and Portrait, 1975, Tate © Estate of Francis Bacon